Lectures and seminars StratNeuro lunch seminar - “Mapping the Female Brain: A Spotlight on Sex Steroids Across the Lifespan”

Despite widespread sex differences in prevalence and presentation of numerous illnesses affecting the brain, there has been limited focus on the effects of endocrine aging on brain health in females. The majority of preclinical studies have focused on males only, and clinical studies often analyzed data by covarying for sex, ignoring relevant differences between the sexes. This sex-neutral approach is biased and can contribute to failures of health care providers to deliver targeted treatments and services for all sexes. In my talk, I will spotlight female brain health by informing on the role of sex steroids, particularly estradiol, on the female brain across the lifespan. I will present our work on sex steroid fluctuations and their impact on the female brain across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause using dense-sampling approaches, large population-based datasets, and machine learning tools. A better understanding of the dramatic changes in the female brain across the lifespan is a critical step towards mechanistic models explaining sex differences in disease susceptibility and a crucial prerequisite for the development of personalised mental health care.

Dr. Claudia Barth is a biologist and neuroscientist by training with a strong background in neuroendocrinology. Her work integrates preclinical and clinical perspectives as well as computational approaches to study hormonal transition periods and their impact on brain health and psychiatric disorders. Currently, she is employed as a senior researcher at Diakonhjemmet Hospital (Oslo, Norway), where she leads the FemHealth project. She further serves as Chair of the ENIGMA Neuroendocrinology Working Group – Menopause Subgroup, to foster global research collaborations on this topic. In 2024, she was awarded with a ERC StartingGrant for her project MappingPerimenopause. 

Host: Anna Marseglia & Shireen Sindi on behalf of StratNeuro & the Center for Alzheimer Research - Sex And GEnder differences in dementia (SAGE-WG)

Schedule

11:30-12:30        StratNeuro Lunch seminar, Nils Ringertz room, Biomedicum.

Lunch included by StratNeuro

• Introduction by Anna Marseglia (5 min)
• Lecture “Mapping the Female Brain: A Spotlight on Sex Steroids Across the Lifespan” (40 min)
• Q&A (15-20 min)

12:30-13:00 Lunch 

13:00-14:30       Round Tables session on career advice with Early Career Investigators, Nils Ringertz room, Biomedicum